[The north European people of Norway Sweden Finland Europe celebrated it as “Karachun”, “Koleda” or “Khorovod”. The ancient peoples of North America celebrated Uttarayan as “Soyalangwul” and the Central and South America ’s ancient Incas celebrated it as “Inti Raymi”. In the Western Asia , before the rise of Christianity and Islam, they celebrated Uttarayan as “Zagmuk” or “Yalda”. The areas such as Tibet, China, Japan, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos etc. where Semitic religions (Christianity and Islam) have not widely spread, the Uttarayan is celebrated variously as “Dong zhi”, “Yazu”, “Makar-Sankranti”, "Maghe Sakranti", “Maghi”, “Thingyan”, “Songkran”, “Maha-songkran”, “Pi Ma Lao” etc. In Pakistan China
By Nilesh M. Shukla
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Former Nepalese Prime Minister Madhav Kumar
on Friday. January 01, 2010 held at Rastriya Sabha Griha in
community celebrates Maghe Sankranti,the first day of Magh, as their New Year.
Image: Ekantipur |
We relate these festivals to
kite-flying and eating sesame-candies. We also know, how that great Bhishma of
Mahabharat fame waited till arrival of this day before giving up his life and
embracing death. This festival is recognized essentially as a tribute to sun
and its victory over darkness when it is well on its course marching from the
tropic of Capricorn to reach the tropic of Cancer, that is to say, from
southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere. Nights visibly shrink and the
winter perceptibly declines as it progresses on its mission.
When we think of Makar-Sankranti
and Uttarayan, a host of things flood our consciousness. The sun, the stars,
the nakshatras, the winter, the summer, the wind, the earth, the connected
stories and histories, and of course, kites and sesame-candies too. These
notions are systematically built around these festivals by ancient Indian
thinkers, the rishis, with a view to inculcate effort-free understanding of the
Mother Nature and making her come alive to us. Today’s world knows it better
than anyone else, how much valuable the nature is by way of having become
victim of its wanton exploitation. Citizens of the world have realized
importance of preserving nature but they have lost the vision of ancients and
hence no effective way is now at hand with them to tackle self-inflicted
climate-change, global-warming and deadly-pollution. But this was not the case
two millennia ago, when each and every civilization, without any exception,
celebrated nature. Especially, the sun-worship was the most universal of all
worships before being trashed by new Semitic faiths in their drive for new
faithful recruits who must close their eyes and ears to their ancestral gods.
The ruins at Scotland Stonehenge and Ireland
Sun is life and its absence,
death. Therefore, no wonder, sun is revered by everyone. Sun-God was known by
various names by different civilizations of the yore. In Egypt it was “Ra”, in
the large area between India through Iran and Europe it was “Mitra’, in Japan
it was ‘Amaterasu’, in North-Europe it was “Beiwe” or “Lugh”, in the Roman
empire it was ‘Sol’, in Greece it was ‘Helios’ or ‘Apollo’ and in America, for
Incas it was “Inti” and for Mayans, “Kinich Ahau”. In India Nepal Tibet China Lanka , Myanmar Indonesia Malaysia
In the sense of northern movement
of sun, the Uttarayan begins from the day of winter-solstice and continues till
sun maintains its northward travel. In India Surat Gujarat ). Another reason for the
variation in the dates of Uttarayan celebration stems from imperceptibility of
the change in sunrise and sunset timings when sun is close to the solstice. Let
us take current example to understand the issue of imperceptibility. Although
the daylight period keeps growing from 22nd December, its growth until 14th
January (in 23 days), is merely 7 minutes-19 seconds, negligible when compared
to 19 minutes-9 seconds growth in the next 23 day period after 14th January.
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| Image Credit: Desi Comments |
The north European people of Norway Sweden Finland Europe celebrated it as “Karachun”, “Koleda” or “Khorovod”. The ancient peoples of North America celebrated Uttarayan as “Soyalangwul” and the Central and South America ’s ancient Incas celebrated it as “Inti Raymi”. In the Western Asia , before the rise of Christianity and Islam, they celebrated Uttarayan as “Zagmuk” or “Yalda”. The areas such as Tibet, China, Japan, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos etc. where Semitic religions (Christianity and Islam) have not widely spread, the Uttarayan is celebrated variously as “Dong zhi”, “Yazu”, “Makar-Sankranti”, "Maghe Sakranti", “Maghi”, “Thingyan”, “Songkran”, “Maha-songkran”, “Pi Ma Lao” etc. In Pakistan China
Makar-Sankranti is the day when
sun enters the ‘nakshatra’ of Capricorn and it is the time when sun is already
well on its way northwards, the ‘Uttarayan’. These two phenomena are computed
using different methods. Calculated by the tropical-astronomy the Uttarayan is
determined as having begun from winter-solstice and the Makar-Sankranti by
sidereal-astronomy as commencing from 14th January. These two phenomena are
joined into one single-day festival by ancient Indian rishis as the effect of
Uttarayan can be easily experienced since Makar-Sankranti.
Just as Uttarayan portends
reclaiming dominance on the northern hemisphere by sun, it is the Dakshinayan
that does the same in the southern hemisphere. Therefore Dakshinayan is
celebrated as “Maruaroa o Takurua” by the ancient Maoris of New Zealand and as
“Vi-tripantu” by ancient inhabitants of Chile
Thanks to the consumerism of the
present day, the industries and commerce are as if thrown in a frenzy to strip
the Mother nature like there is no tomorrow. Minerals, vegetation, animals,
fish and birds are annihilated to meet the greed. Water, air and land are being
polluted at an alarming rate. People have increased their requirements without
ever thinking about needs of other living beings on the planet. How long could
the earth sustain us has become a matter of great worry. Today world population
stands at staggering 7 billion and would soon double. If the people of the
world are to follow the life-style of America India
However, be sure, such articles
or speeches do not, cannot and would not save the earth. For ensuring effective
saving of the earth, an internal transformation of human is necessary. This
mindset can come only from gradual and perpetual working on people from their
early childhood, a Sanskrit word ‘sanskaar’ well explains that process of
working on mind. That we are not the owner of the earth but only her humble
servant, should be given to everyone from childhood and that knowledge should
be skillfully supplemented all through life of an individual by stories,
festivals, practices, icons and rituals. This is what used to happen when the
whole earth at one time celebrated festivals dedicated to the Mother Nature.
Our ancient forefathers and sages knew it very well and therefore gave us those
festivals, Puranic stories, episodes from history and many of those things
which help reinforce respectful love towards nature in our day-to-day life.
Festivals such as Uttarayan, Makar-Sankranti, Vasant-Panchmi, Sharad-Purnima,
Thaipongal, Thaipusam, Chhath etc are celebrated in tribute to Nature. This is
a patent peculiarity of ancient Indian culture ensuring that the nature gets
unconsciously and unobtrusively woven into our life fabric. However busy we may
be in our life, however hard may we be engaged in the struggle for survival and
even if we have neither inclination nor need to gaze at earth, sun, moon, stars
and seasons, their presence around us remains in our consciousness by auto suggestions
and by festivals, icons, rituals etc.
If it is our mindset that earth
is created for our consumption and God has appointed us as its master to
control it, then we could and certainly would exploit it. That is what has been
done by most of the people. Due to them, the earth stands devastated today. The
message of Indian Sanskruti is quite the opposite. It says that earth is our
mother and to serve it is our duty as her children. We can take what is needed
(not what is wanted) but we should also know that she has other children too to
look after hence it should not so happen that our other brethrens are deprived.
We cannot rob mother and our siblings.
‘Uttarayan’ and ‘Makar-Sankranti’
festivals are a good time to reflect how not to let Indian culture meet the
same fate as rest of the cultures, let us still worship and celebrate nature.
Those who revere the nature, would think twice before inflicting injury to the
revered. We are proud being tree-worshipper, monkey-worshipper, cow worshipper,
snake-worshipper, sun-worshipper, earth-worshipper, river-worshipper, wind
worshipper, etc. etc and etc.
@ Nilesh M. Shukla
@ Nilesh M. Shukla
